Rain has come a long way since the original band members played their first Beatles tribute in a Calabasas, Ca., nightclub. It was the mid-1970s, and the group – relying entirely on a door charge – wasn’t guaranteed a profit.

“We didn’t know if anybody would show up, so we invited all of our friends, our relatives and whomever, just so we’d have somebody to play for,” said Mark Lewis, Rain’s founder, manager and original keyboard player. “The people went absolutely nuts. It was like a religious experience for them to hear somebody even attempt – even though the technology wasn’t there to really do it right –songs like ‘A Day in the Life’ and ‘Lucy in the Sky (With Diamonds)’ and stuff like that, stuff The Beatles never played (live).”

In 2012, Rain is still playing those tunes, but the environment is completely different. After more than 300 dates on Broadway, during a well-received 2010-2011 run, you won’t find the guys from Rain taking bar gigs. You will, however, see their Beatles tribute at the Pioneer Center March 16-18.

The Reno shows are special because Lewis and long-time players, Joey Curatolo and Ralph Castelli have lived in the Biggest Little City for years. In fact, the Rain tribute show blossomed in Reno and Tahoe showrooms.

“I miss the Reno audience,” said Curatolo, who handles the Paul McCartney persona in the production. “I miss all the friends, the family and stuff like that. I’m just really excited to bring this show back. … I’m looking forward to performing for the local crowd.”

Although the band played countless Northern Nevada gigs in the 1980s and ’90s, Curatolo and Lewis said it’s been almost seven years since Rain made a local stop. What’s more, that last local show was a private, corporate performance, so it’s been nearly a decade since the public was able to buy tickets to a performance.

In the time that’s passed, things have changed tremendously. Definitions are tricky, but today, Rain is probably best described as a production, not a band. When the group transformed from cabaret act to a full-on stage show, it had to sign additional musicians just to meet the rigors of constant performance. Lewis said some incarnation of Rain is playing almost every week of the year, meaning there’s too much work for five guys. Additional players and nonstop gigs aren’t the only differences.

(Page 2 of 2)

“There’s twice as much material,” Lewis said. “From a production standpoint, there’s a lot more multimedia, a lot more staging, a lot more props, a lot more songs. … We take them through the whole Beatles era.”

That means tunes ranging from early hits, like “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” and “All My Loving,” to later material from the “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “Abbey Road” albums.

“This show pertains to three, sometimes four, generations of fans,” Curatolo said. “I like to call it 8 to 80. Who doesn’t know ‘Yesterday’? Who doesn’t know ‘Hey Jude’? … We see some people out there 75, 80 years old – the Elvis era – that just love it. They love it. Then you’ve got 8-, 10-, 15-year olds with the peace signs up … Then you have the college crowd that’s really studying it and revisiting it and hearing it for the first time. For those who lived it, it’s a religious experience, and for those that are turning on to it, it’s a really hip thing.”

Although Rain’s slate of musicians has grown, Curatolo said Reno audiences will only see the hometown guys, meaning he will handle McCartney’s parts and fellow local Ralph Castelli will do his best Ringo Starr for all five Reno dates. Lewis quit playing to work full time in management, but he said he’ll be hanging around as well.

“It’s really something because it’s come so far from what it used to be in the days that we played here,” he said. “It was sort of like we were a well-kept secret in Northern Nevada and California. Now, we’ve become an international act.”

He isn’t exaggerating.

Rain is a regular on Pollstar’s rankings of the top 20 North American concert tours. In late February and early March, the band’s show was ranked No. 15, ahead of John Mellencamp, Avenge Sevenfold and Rise Against. It was ranked just behind Judas Priest and Paul Simon. Rain also won a Drama Desk Award last year for outstanding musical revue, capping a Broadway outing that was supposed to be three months but got extended to 10.

Both Lewis and Curatolo say they are extremely gratified by the success.

“For a long time, we played for a two-drink minimum,” Lewis said. “To be able to walk over to the Neil Simon Theatre and see the hustle and bustle of people trying to get their tickets and get in to see our show with a line around the block. I can’t tell you how exciting that is.”

It doesn’t seem like the fervor is dying down anytime soon either. Lewis said he’s working on a possible return to Broadway this year, and the group may even make a stop in The Beatles home country: England.

“We’re basically touring all over the world,” he said, “and the West End has expressed interest. It’s actually a matter of us finding a vacant theater.”

Regardless of what happens in the future, Lewis has a soft spot for Reno … and not just because he lives here.

“If it weren’t for Reno and Tahoe giving us the opportunity to work on a regular basis at Harrah’s,” he said, “we might have all have gone off in different directions 20 years ago.”